John shrugged. “Some experts say that renovations can cause even more stress for couples than having children.”

My eyes teared up. “And then there’s lack of having children. Do some experts say where that falls on the stress-ometer?”

John closed the distance between us, wrapped his arms around me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I have to admit, right now I’m having a hard time remembering what we’re even mad at each other or not mad at each other about. There’s just so much noise around here that even when it stops I can’t hear myself think.”

“I hear you,” John said.

“See,” I said, “I can’t even tell if that was a joke.”

We christened our almost-sanctuary with a kiss.

“Joe left us some choices to make for him by tomorrow,” John said when we came up for air.

So we sat on the still-to-be refinished old maple floor of what would soon be our master bedroom. We shuffled through paint sample cards like we were playing poker. The soft greige colors called out to us both: Canyon Echo and Gray Owl and Big Chill and Agreeable Gray. In the end we chose Agreeable Gray, probably as much for the sentiment as the color.

We turned to the trim colors, each of us grabbing a bunch of sample cards and fanning them out.

“Do you have any whites?” I said.

“Go fish,” John said.

I smiled. “I’ve got White Dove, Linen White, White on White, Cotton Balls. This is so overwhelming. Ooh, how about Simply White?”

“I like the sound of that,” John said. “And to tell you the truth, I can’t really tell the difference—they all look white to me.”

Joe’s crew had salvaged some of the wooden lathe strips when the walls were knocked down. They’d cleaned up the lathe enough to wrap the bathroom walls in it like narrow shiplap. It was still pretty rough, so Joe wanted to paint it. We decided on Simply White for that, too.

“Well, that simplifies things,” I said.

We both went right for the same tile sample for the shower. It was called Coastal Dew, a gorgeous tumbled edge frosted glass elongated subway tile that looked like seafoam green sea glass.

For the bottom of the shower, we chose a mosaic tile made from individual beach pebbles attached to a mesh square. Just to be sure we were making the right choice, John put the sample on the floor, took off his shoes and stepped on it with both feet.

“Perfect,” he said. “It’ll feel like a foot massage every time we step into the shower.”

“If you take off your socks,” I said, “I bet it’ll feel even better. You don’t step into the ocean like that, do you?”